About

The title of the blog was suggested by a friend over a year ago as the title of a book in a hypothetical series about my life. It’s also a nod to my first blog “Bethany and the Great World” which was in turn a nod to the wonderful book “Betsy and the Great World” part of the inimitable Betsy Tacy series by Maud Hart Lovelace, books that I’ve been reading since my early grade school years (in fact my mother read the first book aloud to my sisters and me) and have made me into what I am today. If you haven’t read them, read them. As Laura Lippmann said when listing the Betsy Tacy books among her top five for Newsweek: “there are two kinds of women: those who know these books and those who don’t.” Happy to be among the former.

Oh my word! It is rare to find someone who read these. A sweet, elderly librarian recommended them to my mother when we were little, and the rest is history. I actually still reread them once a year! They just get better with age.